Today's Stories

“The Vietnam War is the most important event in American history in the second half of the twentieth century,” Novick, who co-directed The Vietnam War, says. “It’s still working on us in ways that we don’t understand.”

Geoffrey C. Ward has written scripts for Ken Burns for the past thirty years, and his incredible life uniquely fits him for the job. He survived polio, hunted tigers in India as a teenager, and has an ancestor who bankrupted Ulysses S. Grant.

The Democratic National Convention of August, 1968, held in Chicago, was a defining moment of the Vietnam era and a watershed in American politics. What actually happened during that devastating event that pitted police against protesters and ripped apart the Democratic Party?

While serving in Vietnam, Marine Phil Seymour promised a watch to a Vietnamese boy who lived near his base. Forty years later, he finally delivered, reigniting a lost friendship and profoundly changing the lives of both men and their families.

More than three million Vietnamese soldiers and civilians and more than 58,000 American soldiers died in the Vietnam War. Nearly 3,000 American soldiers were from Illinois. What memorials, in various forms, exist near Chicago to honor them?

Axis Lab seeks to preserve the culture and history of the Vietnamese community centered on Argyle Street in Uptown, as well as support the local businesses, through innovative artistic means. "It's up to us to continue our parents' work," says the executive director.

The WTTW premiere presentation of The Vietnam War is made possible, in part, by our Lead Institutional Sponsor, Pritzker Military Museum & Library.
Support is also provided by Rita and John Canning, Jamee and Marshall Field, National Veterans Art Museum, John Raitt with Elizabeth Yntema and Mark Ferguson, Charles and Marilynn Rivkin, and an anonymous donor.